Paul Scholes is still regarded as one of the greatest midfielders England has ever produced.

The legendary playmaker, now 42, made 718 appearances for Manchester United and won just about everything in the game during his playing career. Domestically, anyway.

11 Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, three FA Cups and two League Cups makes for an extremely impressive trophy cabinet.

Several world-class stars like Patrick Vieira, Zinedine Zidane and Xavi have all said Scholes was the best player they ever played against, which, when you actually digest those comments, you realise who extraordinary they are.

As glittering as his Manchester United career was, his England career never reached the heights it really should have.

Scholes was a part of the supposed 'Golden Generation' that featured the likes of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard in the midfield, as well as Rio Ferdinand, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney from around 2001-2004.

However, for large parts of his England career, boss Sven-Goran Eriksson deployed him on the left-hand side of midfield or the left side of the midfield diamond.

Neither position truly brought out the best in Scholes, and the fact that he scored seven goals in his first 16 internationals and then seven in his next 50 caps shows that Eriksson failed to get the best out of him.

So why wasn't Scholes played in the middle instead of the much-criticised partnership of Lampard and Gerrard? During an interview with FourFourTwo fresh off his retirement, the legendary midfielder answered whether it annoyed him playing second fiddle.

"No, not really. A lot of people said that and blamed Sven for me quitting England, but the truth is I played on the wing for Man United too and scored a lot of goals. But it didn’t work out like that for England. I’m not sure why.

"The truth is I got on great with Sven. I don’t think there’s anyone who didn’t – we all loved playing for him. He put me in that position because he thought Frank and Steven were better suited to playing in the middle than me.

"It was his choice, and it wasn’t my business to tell him where I should play. He thought they were better than me."

Really? Lampard and Gerrard better than Scholes? Both of those guys were great players in their own right, but it seems Sven was more interested in getting as many good players on the pitch as possible rather than fitting players into a system.